Self regulation, body reclamation, & self-trust
From the archives (2020)
Living with unprocessed trauma means living with a dysregulated nervous system. It means living in a state of dissociation. It means not being able to trust ourselves, our reactions, or others and our surroundings.
Living with complex trauma, living in that activated state, in that anxious state, more hours of the day than not, is exhausting. Emotionally, psychologically, and physically/physiologically.
It impacts our health. Physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual.
The impacts of living with unprocessed personal childhood trauma is exacerbated by the world we live in. A world where womxn, people of color, trans and non-binary persons, are oppressed and murdered for simply having the audacity to breathe. This has been becoming more and more clear to more and more people, as the veils continue to be lifted and more atrocities are initiated and more horrors are revealed.
We live in a world where being poor is essentially a death sentence.
A world where billionaires can buy their way into the presidency, can rape and eat children, with no consequences or repercussions.
A world where victims are blamed and survivors aren’t believed.
A world that is ultimately unsafe for the majority.
Knowing this, knowing our world is unsafe, fundamentally so, that this reality activates and exacerbates our complex trauma, how to do we find ways of regulating our nervous systems, reclaim our body, and learn to trust our Self and not be at the mercy of our fight/flight and freeze/fawn reactions? How do we find our ways back to embodiment while still trying to survive in the current hellscape?
First, I believe it is so vital that we don’t gaslight ourselves. That we don’t tell our Self that the world is perfectly safe when it’s not. Yes, there are spaces where we are more or even mostly safe. In those spaces, we can tell our systems, body, and Self that we are safe enough and can give our hyper vigilence and stress responses some respite.
That said we can also go out and function in the world without being controlled by our limbic system. We can learn to lower our baseline anxiety, to self regulate, to reclaim our body as OURS and ours only, and even to trust ourselves without lying to ourselves about the reality of the world we live in.
In fact, we need to be able to go out into the world and function. We need to be able to learn to relate to others in ways that aren’t activating, that don’t escalate already tense situations. To relate to others from a place of compassion, curiosity, community. To actually relate to other humans, and ourselves, instead of constantly being on the defense or offense.
I believe in order for us to learn to relate to others, in any and all spaces, we need to come back into our body. To regulate our autnomic nervous system. To reclaim our body as our own and truly come home into it. To trust our deeper knowing, our body, our perceptions, while also being curious and open to check in with ourselves and see if what is happening is a response to a past trauma or the present moment.
We need to know if what is happening within is a response to the present moment or that our past trauma experience(s) is being activated in some way, or some combination of both, in order to relate to people and situations in ways that are beneficial for all involved, and for the greater collective. Ultimately, it is important for us to do our work. To learn to self regulate. To reclaim our body and come home to it. To know our self well enough so we know when we can trust and when we need to dig a little deeper.
It is important for us to do our work not only so we can enjoy our lives more and have deeper and more fulfilling relationships, but also so the the new ways we are in the world start to make a greater shift for our communities and the greater collective. So the systems of harm that keep us disconnected are actively dismantled.
We aren’t required to do this work. It wasn’t our fault that we were harmed and what we do or don’t do with our processing or healing is wholly up to us.
AND.
We are required to not cause harm to others. To not perpetuate abuse and trauma.
I honestly don’t know another way to not cause harm, to ourselves, to other individuals, to the collective, to the planet, than to continue doing our own personal trauma work and breaking the generations old patterns and cycles that have brought us, individually and collectively, where we are today and to begin this work by reconnecting with our nervous system.
This is not simple work. I don’t believe it’s ever done. We have layers and layers, lifetimes and generations worth of patterns and cycles to unravel and untangle.
Learning to regulate our nervous system takes practice and time. Learning to be able to tolerate the sensations of our body. Learning to process the overwhelm we are all experiencing and supporting ourselves and each other through this time of social, cultural, and collective transition.
Reclaiming our body as ours takes practice, compassion, and an understanding that this part of our work will ebb and flow. That there is no final “arrival point”. That we each have layers of trauma, personal, social, ancestral, to process, to feel, to unpack and unlearn.
Coming to a place of both trusting our inner knowing and being self-aware enough to know the difference between this knowing and an activated trauma response takes knowing how to self-regulate, coming into our bodies, and practice, time, compassion, and patience.
This trifecta, self-regulation, body reclaiming, and trusting our Self, is so key to being able to change all our relationships and changing the world. It is how we shift from our own individual survival to having a life that is fulfilling and thriving. It is a vital part of the revolution and evolution of our species. It is an important piece of how we will burn down our authoritarian, white supremacist, oppressive systems and come together to build something different, where all persons are free, loved, and liberated.
This essay was originally published in my newsletter in March 2020. It has been revised for publication today.
Are you interested in doing the next level of inner work to bring about the change we all want to be and see in the world with a small group of like-minded folks, while learning how to come home to our bodies and unlearning the ways we internalized the messaging of the systems of harm? DM me here and we’ll get the ball rolling to have you join Emodied Relating : (R)evolution! Alternatively, you can directly sign up by going here and getting a paid subscription. We begin March 19.
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